Patterns

Well, I must certainly thank you for acknowledging the topic at hand and giving me something to work with. I respect your opinion since it seems to conform to your viewpoint that, aside from the original masterpiece, they all suck. In order for this to be a valid conclusion, though, you must also prove that, 1. Halloween fans are near unanimous that the sequels suck, and 2. The copyright holders have shown a certain carelessness about their property, and therefore likely just churn them out without too much thought.

I'm a member of social media groups, such as The Legacy of Halloween run by Fandom Empire, with a subscribership numbering at a quarter of a million. You may be surprised to learn that there is not anything close to a consenses about which sequels are good or bad. Many, like me, don't even consider the 1978 original the best, though we do acknowledge how revolutionary it was as a low-budget film. It's strengths are in the varied performances, twist ending, and Carpenter's legendary film score, and clever lighting & framing of shots. On the other hand, it's rewatchability value is quite low since about half the film is just suburban images of houses along with repeated scenes of young adults making small talk on the phone, driving or watching television. Compare that to the pickup truck battle in Halloween 4 or the dynamic party scene in Halloween 5 at the Tower Farm that incorporates the barn & harvest themed setting—with elements of mistaken identity utilized by the antagonist, telepathy, and a climax vehicle chase through the woods. The director also, being European, incorporated his own Gothic Victorian-type ambience which variably enhances all the very standard Americanized horror tropes.

While it's definitely true that after II in 1981, they were originally going to finish the Myers storyline and move to the seasonal anthology format. However, they were inundated with calls and scripts in the 1980s to bring back Myers to compete with other horror icons. What I'm saying is they saw this as an opportunity to continue the pattern, sometimes with a single director, such as David Gordon Green or Rob Zombie, and sometimes with a little more variety as was the Thorn Trilogy, but essentially inserting many similar beats to the familiar routine.

As with Season of the Witch (1982), a lot of casual viewers were put off by the choices of Halloween Ends (2022) and now we see an extraordinary level of chatter to continue one of the prior timelines to bring back Michael, or otherwise expand on the established mythology perhaps even in a limited TV format. Sometimes it's good business to subvert the expectations of the masses even to the point of anger & disillusionment.

What do you think they do all day, anyway, in these corporate production offices? Design butcher knives?! No, they have conversations like I'm having right now to give the series a familiar niche and make all their previous efforts as exciting and relevant as ever.

Now... if they never pick up from a prior timeline in a new trilogy format EVER again. Only then will I acknowledge your stance of it being a half-hearted coincidence. Until then, please re-read my OP, and consider the evidence that the timeline branches consist of three separate trilogies and two other sets where the third chapter was set up but never came to fruition... YET.

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